The year is almost over and many of us are spending our holidays search our social media accounts for interesting blog posts while watching the snowflakes or, in our case, the raindrops falling. To make this year’s ending even more comfortable for you, we have searched through the web to gather the best Open Innovation posts of this year.

Note: we have used search enginges such as Twitter’s Advanced Search, Google Search Blog, Digg Search and Delicous Search to create this list. But most of all, we have used our common sense

Create Employee Networks that Deliver Open Innovation – Sloan Review, MIT
A small number of “idea scouts” and “idea connectors” are disproportionately influential in producing successful open innovation outcomes. Smart companies make sure they are linked.http://bit.ly/rJEkAh

The Continuing Payoff from Open Innovation – Strategy Business
At the heart of the innovation process is the search for new ideas and market opportunities with commercial value.http://bit.ly/tZ0rme

7 Ways to make Open Innovation Work – Investors Digest
If your company isn’t innovating, it’s slipping behind the competition. With the Internet and the increasing flow of ideas and information,
internal R&D departments alone aren’t always the answer. More than ever, business owners are embracing open innovation to stay ahead. Open innovation is more than a toolkit, it’s a mindset.http://bit.ly/t0iY2t

Lego’s $50 Million Open Innovation Failure – Innovation Excellence (148)
The headline screams like a disaster. It’s not really that bad. Yes, Lego took a loss around that size when they decided to shut down their
online game, Lego Universe, but they also learned some valuable lessons.http://bit.ly/v1hpWQ

From Open Source to Open Research: Horizon 2020 – ComputerWorldUK
Last week I took part in a meeting at the European Parliament entitled “Horizon 2020: Investing in the common good”. Here’s the background: Horizon 2020 is the EU´s framework programme for research and innovation.http://bit.ly/u4eccK

Open Innovation Program to develop extreme weather Warning System – Daily Crowdsource
The extreme weather conditions at the heart of many natural disasters that devastate the South American continent have prompted calls for a better way to deal with these catastrophes. Since the absence of an effective early warning system is a major concern, The Planetary Skin Institute (PSI), a non-profit global research and development organization, along with Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) have recently announced an open innovation program.http://bit.ly/vx06Rq

How Open Innovation Saved the Microsoft Brand – Innovation Excellence
5 years ago, what was your impression of Microsoft? Even if the impression didn’t match the reality of what the company was innovating, terms like antiquated, stagnant and dinosaur of technology were routinely tossed about to describe the software Goliath. But what about today?http://bit.ly/sldGaZ

Open Innovation for Heroes: introducting the Veterans Job Bank – Whitehouse.gov
Today, the Obama Administration launched the Veterans Job Bank, a new search tool designed to help connect veterans with employers. The Job Bank works by bringing jobs listings directly to veterans—instead of the other way around—via a search widget that provides a single window into the myriad job boards, social media platforms, and corporate employment sites that are currently spread across the Internet.http://1.usa.gov/sIn55P

Open Innovation Companies Help Inventors Move Ahead – NY Times
Betsy Ravreby Kaufman is a lot of things — a freelance television producer, a former anchor, a wife and mother, a resident of Houston. One thing she is not, she insists, is an inventor.http://nyti.ms/v8enhn